Western Short StoryJehrico's Wolf PupTom Sheehan

Western Short Story

When
Jehrico’s wolf pup bit the sheriff, on his gun hand, and on his
trigger finger to boot, things went from bad to worse. To begin with,
Ruben Tarpon was a new sheriff with a fast gun and was trying his
best to make his name as good as his gun and do a good job for the
folks of Bola City. He was also checking out the pup as a curiosity,
some folks telling him about it locked in a cage behind the livery.
The sheriff had heard about Jehrico’s stunts and ventures into the
business side of Bola City, like his hauling in the first iron bath
tub to serve the hygienic needs of Bola City’s male population.
Jehrico, Tarpon figured, was gifted with accidental entrances into
things that made him money, and him being nothing more than a
collector of odd things found in his travels, often just junk.
Jehrico, however, knew firsthand the desert, older Indian sites and
dwelling areas, ghost towns, closed-down mines, caverns and caves and
canyons, and the community trash deposits for a hundred miles around
that he reveled exploring in.

None
of that stopped the bite when the sheriff put his hand too close to
the pup.

And
the bitten finger had a far-reaching effect on Bola City’s
relationships between the law, local merchants and the bank.

The
sheriff, an elected official, said aloud to some confederates, “This
is all the fault of that damned junk collector, him and his pup.”
Though he was a stalwart among the men and a favorite of the women
with his ruggedly handsome looks, he was aware of his status at all
times, knowing it all came with the territory of the badge, the turn
of a key to a jail cell, and the hangman’s noose when it counted.

It
all had begun so simply for Jehrico in his newest venture into the
world of collecting things. He came up with the pup at the back end
of a cave in the mountains, born to snarl it appeared, but cute as a
doll.

“Look
for the dog in him, Jehrico. He’s as much dog as anythin’.”
Jehrico’s pal Joe Brewster was laying it on the line about
Jehrico’s new wolf pup he’d brought to Brewster to get his view
on having one for a pet. Brewster knew animals, once having lived in
the hills around the Strict Elsie settlement on the Guila River for
at least ten years before he walked out of the hills one day and came
to town of Strict Elsie, leaving all the genuine silence behind him.

He’d
spotted Jehrico as soon as he cleared the pass at the high point
above Strict Elsie, some vultures riding the thermals hundreds of
feet above him, their wings, even that far, as wide as the back side
of a pair of oxen in the traces. It was not until Jehrico came within
fifty yards that Brewster knew he was carrying a bundle of fur. The
way he carried it told Brewster the fur was alive and, of course, had
to be a young one.

“Watcha
got there, Jehrico? It’s near alive far as I kin see. It ain’t
peccary and it ain’t cow, so I’d guess it’s gotta be bear or
wolf, and if you say it’s wolf, make sure you handle it like a dog.
Like I said, it’s much dog as anythin’.”

He
shook his head and said, “If you bring it down into Bola City, be
ready to get some sand in your grits; them folks down there don’t
like anythin’ that even smells wolf. So best tell ‘em up front
it’s a dog you found with the momma dead. Them big male wolves have
been nosin’ into the wind for a hundred years now. It travels on
the breeze, in the wind, and if they find it like we do comin’ in
from a month in the desert, knowin’ girl on the wind from a hundred
miles away, they’d get mean at things plumb near forgot.”

Jehrico,
all smiles, still holding the pup like he was a toy, ignoring the
threats of real life, said, “What’ll I call him, Joe? Got any
special names you ain’t used up yet? I favor south names, if you
know what I mean.”

Brewster,
looking at the vultures still at games, said, “How about Bruto, him
bein’ so mean and all? Bruto’s good name for that critter just
waitin’ to bite your finger off given a chance he come of age.”
The two old pals laughed long and loud as they shared the bundle of
fur, with white teeth in the middle of the ball.

“You
keep to mind them teeth, Jehrico, ‘cause they come to growin’
easy as the ground shakin’ when the mountain moves. Bruto get set
to use them there’s no kiddin’ around on him. Them kind ain’t
born to chew, I should tell you. They was plain born to rip things
apart, one part from another, ‘specially they any meat in between
or settin’ on them parts.”

The
two friends of the animal world set about to make a cage for Bruto,
after Jehrico poured some water from his canteen on the pup and said,
“I bless you and give you the name Bruto. Wear it where you will,
but for now in this here cage we got made, me and Joe. It’s just to
keep you from the dogs in town, and there’s lots of them nosin’
around all the time.”

Brewster
added a bit more advice. “You best let Bruto smell you every time
you feed him, Jehrico. Let him get your smell down good in his belly
‘cause it might save a finger or a hand later he come of real age
and them teeth do the real thing.”

Jehrico
had a rig behind his mule that he could tote the cage in, and that’s
how they entered Bola City, Jehrico on his mule and the wolf pup in
his cage.

For
starters, the sheriff was practically out of commission, and most
people around knew it, including some gang members sitting in a cabin
at the back end of Snake Canyon off in the mountain range, and
knowing the hand of the law was bandaged to a fare-thee-well.

“He
ain’t so good a shot anymore,” Dutch the German said, talking to
his small gang of robbers, all rested after their last robbery, and
just about all the money spent. “He ain’t going to get the jump
on us, his hand like it is. That damned wolf pup did us a great big
favor. Bola City’s next for us, boys, and that bank over there. We
ought to give a toast to that scrounger that brought home a wolf pup,
thinking he was going to fool people making them think it was a lost
puppy dog his momma run off or killed.”

One
member of the gang, No-Foolin’ Toulin, at the back end of the
cabin, whittling on a stick, said, “We gotta have a better plan
than last time, Dutch. We was lucky on that one.” He rolled his
eyes and flashed his hands in the air, both moves for base
punctuation.

“Whatta
ya mean ‘we was lucky?’“ said Dutch. “We came out of there
with a whole satchel of dough. So we lost Butchie. Well, he ain’t
no big loss to us. You gotta admit he screwed up on the Timberfield
job and I think he was asleep again this time. No way he shoulda
taken one right in the face. Just wasn’t payin’ attention and
somebody else coulda been dropped too, in case you ain’t thought of
that yet.” He stressed his statement by pointing to each one in
turn and saying, “You or you or you and even you. All of you coulda
had the deep end of the tunnel all to hisself, if you really think
about it.”

A
small wave of mumbling ensued and Dutch the German knew none of the
others would speak up; they were too scared, but Toulin came right
back. “That stupid scavenger, that Jehrico lug, he ought to be part
of us, way things happen with him. You heard about his bath tub and
his pianer he brought back one time, like the whole world turned over
on its backside for him. They say he smells like gold or silver up
close and even gets a free bath once a week. Man like that could
throw a whole passel of Rangers right off our trail, he give it a
mind to do so.”

Dutch
the German had a sudden idea, and he let it run around in his head
before he spoke up about it. “What about this?” he said, leaning
forward, looking them in the eye, drawing them in one by one. “We
turn that wolf pup loose. Let him shake up a few folks, the whole
town maybe, and while the pup raises hell of any kind, we rob the
bank when they’re all messed up with the thing being loose, like
maybe he’s gonna bite a kid or some old lady hangin’ up clothes
on her line, or just layin’ around like nothin’ ever’s gonna
happen, but the sheriff hisself is already punched out of action by a
baby wolf.”

“He
still keep that pup behind the livery, near the tub set-up?”
No-Foolin’ Toulin obviously knew the answer to his own question.
“Want I should take care of him, Dutch? I ain’t too queasy doin’
somethin’ like that.” His head came down into the circle where
Dutch’s head had been, demanding attention, getting it, along with
a share of responsibility and command. Smiling at Dutch, and then at
the other gang members, he laid out a plan. “I figure I ought to
feed him somethin’ good, what he likes, while he’s still in the
cage. If he’s on the running line, loose as far as his leash lets
him go, I’ll still feed him with that somethin’ goin’ to get
his blood all lathered up inside, waitin’ to bite the hell out of
anybody else comes near him. I learned a trick from an old Indian one
time, about dropping a piece of meat in a special sauce, makes an
animal go kinda crazy he eats it,”

“Sounds
pretty smooth, No-Foolin’,” Dutch said. “He scare half the
women in town to screamin’ and we got a walk-through at the bank,
and Sheriff Tarpon ain’t gonna draw down on us no way, while all
the men folk try to be heroes for their women and kids.”

It
all went awry, of course, by the intervention of, not by Jehrico
himself, but by his pal, the joker and animal man, Joe Brewster, who,
during the darkest part of the night, extricated the wolf pup from
the cage, put him in a box in the loft of the livery, and inserted a
badger in its place. The badger was as mean as possible for one his
size, and Brewster was just hoping to have some fun come morning.

He
got all he was looking for.

In
the forenoon of the day, a full night’s sleep behind him, Jehrico
came to feed the pup and was surprised, but not amazed, to see an
entirely different critter in the cage. Instinctively he knew that
Brewster had been afoot in the night. He decided not to show any
anxiety or any of his surprise, because he wanted to set off Brewster
in his own way. The critter was a new one to Jehrico and he decided
not to feed him, just to get back at his pal and omit what might be
an exciting moment. He heard the wolf pup up in the livery and went
to check on him and to feed him his morning ration.

Of
course, the exciting moment came when an unsuspecting and usually
morning-sleepy No-Foolin’ Toulin came to initiate his plan to feed
the wolf pup and set him free to raise havoc all around Bola City. He
did not pay much attention to the critter and when he opened the cage
to toss in his “special food supply,” that all-out mean badger
latched onto the ankle of his boot with a grip that was not about to
loosen and sent No-Foolin’ Toulin in a mad, wild, screaming
escapade all around the livery area. He wanted desperately to shoot
the critter but he could not get his handgun free of his holster,
falling knocked down repeatedly or getting knocked against a wall and
further drawing out from his deepest insides the unholiest of
screams.

Those
screams swept across the morning of Bola City like a wild animal
caught in a deadly snare, which did force the actions of an uncounted
number of people within hearing range.

Jehrico
thought it to be Brewster getting hung up in his own tomfoolery,
Dutch the German and his gang thought it to be the outcome of the
wolf pup on the loose, as promised by Toulin, and Sheriff Tarpon
thought someone was being attacked by thugs or a wild thing inside
the town limits.

Jehrico
sat back in the loft laughing his head off, the wolf pup locked under
a box with a heavy weight on top of it. Dutch the German and his gang
rushed into the bank to rob it. Sheriff Ruben Tarpon grabbed a pistol
in his left hand and fired a shot in the air, then fired another
shot, in his attempt to scare off any wild critter or a thug on his
rounds of doing nothing good, whatever was going on in his town.

When
No-Foolin’ Toulin rolled out into the main street of Bola City, the
badger let go of Toulin’s leg and rushed towards the bank in his
attempt to escape. Some women screamed their holy terror. People on
the wooden walk, which ran in front of the bank and the general
store, rushed into the open doors of both establishments, spilling
goods in the store and throwing the bank hold-up into absolute
turmoil with every man in the place wielding a gun, some expecting to
rob the bank and some expecting the wild critter to come right
through the front door and were ready to shoot him.

Sheriff
Tarpon ran into the street with the smoking pistol in his left hand
and screaming all the while for his deputy to get on the job.

Jehrico
stayed in the loft, the wolf pup under wraps, envisioning what pal
Joe Brewster might be thinking at the time, all the screams and the
gunfire and the general excitement gathering steam in the middle of
town.

To
his credit, pal Joe Brewster was on his horse outside of town heading
back to Strict Elsie, hearing the gunshots, thinking that somebody in
Bola City was taking shots at the badger out and about town, thinking
of Jehrico looking for the wolf pup all the while, and he himself
counting ahead to all the laughs they’d have next time him and
Jehrico got together, away from Bola City, probably during one of
Jehrico’s scavenger hunts.